Page:Practical cooking and dinner giving.pdf/15

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Preface.

The aim of this book is to indicate how to serve dishes, and to entertain company at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as to give cooking receipts. Too many receipts are avoided, although quite enough are furnished for any practical cook-book. There are generally only two or three really good modes of cooking a material, and one becomes bewildered and discouraged in trying to select and practice from books which contain often from a thousand to three thousand receipts.

No claim is laid to originality. “Receipts which have not stood the test of time and experience are of but little worth.” The author has willingly availed herself of the labors of others, and, having carefully compared existing works—adding here and subtracting there, as experience dictated—and haying also pursued courses of study with cooking teachers in America and in Europe, she hopes that she has produced a simple and practical book, which will enable a family to live well and in good style, and, at the same time, with reasonable economy.

The absence from previous publications of reliable